Wetzel on O'bannon - Denard as an example
From the end of the article:
The University of Michigan, for instance, is a Big Ten member with an endowment of about $8 billion. If it wants a field hockey team, it can most certainly afford one. Cutting football players past and present in on some of the tens of millions that program generates or allowing them to profit off their own likeness or to put a percentage of jersey sales into a trust fund, isn't going to bankrupt the school. And if Title IX can't be reworked (and it almost assuredly can), then Michigan would do just that to comply with federal law.
What Delany is saying is that left to its own decision, Michigan won't see field hockey as worth the money. He's acknowledging that outside the myopic prism of the athletic department, gold-plated, non-revenue sports don't make much sense.
Right now Michigan athletics gets 100 percent of the revenue and things roll on. If the players get a cut, then it will have to "reduce opportunities for student-athletes overall."
So it's the players' share of the revenue – the money the O'Bannon case is trying to divert – that is propping up the other sports … the same other sports that Delany doesn't believe the university itself considers a sound investment.
Which begs a simple, if inadvertent question: if Michigan doesn't think it should pay for a field hockey team, then why does it think Denard Robinson should?
coaches and athletic directors make millions on the backs of the student athletes. the advertisers and tv networks make millions and pay out huge salaries to their announcers and employees.
the players are stars because of their individual talents and their affiliations with their respective schools.
the compensation model to the players made sense in the 50s, 60s, 70s but is totally unfair today.
brandon, it is easy to be successful in a company where the most talented/marketed employees were paid almost nothing?
March 20th, 2013 at 11:56 AM ^
Denard Robinson, just like Chris Webber, is a "once in a lifetime" sort of athlete. Should he be getting a cut of the millions made from the sale of 16 jerseys? Clearly. It's just a shitty argument to use by Wetzel. Once a in a fucking lifetime.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:03 PM ^
that's a minimum of 2 'once in a lifetime' athletes in the past 20 years. Once in a decade seems more appropriate.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:10 PM ^
March 20th, 2013 at 12:22 PM ^
He is a large breed dog. Short lifespan, man. Don't got to rub it in.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:31 PM ^
Just for interesting discussion, which would you consider the most exciting of the bunch? I too have seen all that you mentioned play and I have to say that Denard is probably #1 on my list as far as most exciting, if only because he touched the ball on 50% (you know what I mean) of all plays during a game. That's not true with Woodson, Desmond, and others.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:22 PM ^
So the fact that Chad Henne, Mike Hart, Braylon Edwards, Anthony Thomas, Charles Woodson, Tyrone Wheatley, and Desmond Howard didn't sell quite as many jerseys as Denard (if that is true) means that they shouldn't get any cut of their sales? If you accuse others of making "shitty arguments" you should make sure that your logic holds up.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:55 PM ^
I don't understand your logic at all. Do you not think at any given time the University (or any big time football school) is not making buckets of money selling the jersey of the star player du jour? I love Denard. He was electric and a great kid. But in the nearly forty years I have followed Michigan football there have been dozens of players the athletic departments made significant money off in this manner. It is most assuredly not "once in a fucking lifetime."
Just like Trey Burke? Also "once in a lifetime"? You don't think people buy Stauskas' jersey either? Jake Ryan, etc...?
March 20th, 2013 at 12:14 PM ^
"I believe," Delany wrote, "that paying football and/or men's basketball players would reduce opportunities for student-athletes overall."
Basically, he is saying the AD's won't take the pay cut. If it comes down to paying football/basketball student athletes, and the money comes from either their pocket or smaller, non-revenue pumping sports, the AD's would cut softball faster than you can say, well just about anything.
Paying student athletes is not a stupid idea. But the greed of the people who make way more money than they have the right to will cause this to come at a cost that is not necessary.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:15 PM ^
I may be in the minority on this - but the scholarships are significant outlays by the University (read: Athletic Department) especially for out of state athletes, since the AD is paying the University listed tuition rate.
I think there is a happy medium between the "pay the athletes" and "the education is their payment", and it ties in with the suggestion of creating a trust for each athlete - deduct the cost of the scholarship from the specific athlete's trust. If they complete their 4 years eligibility and graduate, they get the surplus, and if there is a negative balance the trust is closed and there is no loss passed to the athlete. This would include changing merchandising rules to allow the names of the actual player to be sold on the jersey, with them getting a percentage of the revenue (not profit - revenue). Players not on scholarship can leverage the balance in their trust to help pay tuition.
I think this requires two things though: mandatory 4(5) year scholarships, and a means to track transfers. The 4/5-year scholarship thing I feel is and always has been something that should be required, and it would help address some of the over signing issues and also protects athletes that may be highly hyped, but not pan out as well as those that may not be hyped but become popular or elite (Kovacs).
The transfer issue is trickier - personally I think it needs to become more of a "professional" model where if player X wants to transfer from Michigan to Kentucky, they can do so, but Kentucky has to pay any negative balance in the player's trust, and any positive balance transfers with the athlete. Also - remove the 1-year wait on playing for the new school. This will absolutely discourage transfers of players, which has 2 effects (what in my mind are benefits): playing time transfers are unlikely to happen as only the elite athlete will have a positive balance in their trust; 5th year grad transfers become an expensive proposition for unproven athletes.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:18 PM ^
I think that the rule that athletes must wait 3 years from graduating high school to join the NFL is an underlying cause of this dilemma. Right now, players don't really have much of a choice regarding going to college if they want to play professional football someday. I'd have much less of an issue with the university making money off of Denard if he had the option to do something else; realistically, he does not.
To use an analogy, if you are a brilliant computer programmer instead of brilliant athlete , you can get a full ride to college, join a programming club on campus (not quite analogous to being on a team), and still work for Google and get paid for your talents. Obviously college is a testing ground in both instances, but once you have proven yourself it is only in football that a student cannot choose to enter the free market. The same analogy would hold true for a music student who can join an on-campus a-capella group while releasing an album or many other professions.
If football players had the choice to go pro and chose to stay in school, then fine, they are allowing their school to profit from them. Right now it isn't really much of a choice.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:28 PM ^
Let player's get drafted as Freshmen, sophomore, etc., and play for their university, somewhat as a minor league development thing. They could get paid the league minimum while still in college, and could still be forced to wait at least till their third year to be "called up."
I don't have an answer for players who want to stay to be champions (Lewan), but that is someone else's job to figure out. haha.
[edit:] Colleges would still keep all their money, and in most cases Pro teams would end up paying the school's players that make the most money for the school anyways.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:58 PM ^
The difference between the NFL and Google is that it is highly unlikely that your co-workers at Google could end your programming career because they are so much smarter than you.
provided the employer can prove they actually did work and are compensated and the average market rate (not just some inflated amount from a booster). Denard can do whatever he wants, he could have waited for 3 years after high school and entered the draft but he wanted to play ncaa ball. He could have majored in CS and magically gotten a job at google while in school or more realisitically do some small freelance stuff on the side and not make much from it. He could have gone to a school that would pay him on the side while he played. Or he could have left a year early to go to the nfl, but he stayed in school. He had choices, they all have choices
Denard could give throwing lessons to QB's at Pioneer or Huron or whatever, it just has to get cleared through compliance. Also, Hoke/Borges can more or less hook him up with those young quarterbacks; I'm a little less clear on this, but I'm pretty certain that for guys Borges can't coach (graduated 8th grade) he can refer them to anyone he wants, including current players.
Just tacking on that it doesn't change my opinion on any of this, which I've gone through in the past and don't really want to do it all over again.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:20 PM ^
Pardon my language but Wetzel once again proves he's a stupid fucking idiot. Dumbest journalist living in metro Detroit, and that is really saying something. Next time I'm in town I want to spork his yard.
Using Denard - the prime example of a student-athlete, one with NFL dreams, who is staying on campus and completing his family's dream for him to obtain his degree - to argue against the model for education and opportunity in favor of money. All while using two of the wealthiest schools, both academically and athletically, to prove his point.
Of course the 8 billion dollars doesn't go to athletics, Wetzel. It's an ACADEMIC endowment. Academic funds don't pay for athletics at schools that bring in enough revenue. If academic endowments were the basis for athletic success, Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford would dominate college athletics.
None of this address the fact that most schools take student funds to support the athletic programs. I know I would flip out if a.) I went to a school where my academic tuition paid for sports and b.) if the same people I was paying to support now started getting paid? Holy effing crap these sportswriters are missing a lot of key points here...
Let's take a look at the other division 1 FBS athletic departments that lose money. Wetzel needs to stop looking through that myopic prism he's talking about and realize he is addressing 10% of the division 1 athletic departments.
Let's stop charging 500 dollar minimum seat licenses and charging students for tickets before we start setting up trust funds for the most pampered people on campus haha.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:28 PM ^
If you're at a major school where some of your academic tuition pays for sports, that doesn't change the fact that star football players are bringing in far more money to the university than they are receiving in the value of their scholarship/coaching/equipment. The part of your academic tuition that pays for sports doesn't support the football players who would get paid; it pays for the continued operation of non-revenue sports - at least, the part of the cost of those sports that isn't paid for by the surplus brought in by football players.
You would be outraged at the hypothetical that your money would be spent on sports that don't directly benefit your education. Well, Denard's football prowess brings in a whole lot more money to the college than your tuition does, so Wetzel's question asks why Denard doesn't get any say on his revenues being used on sports that don't benefit him.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:52 PM ^
I can't really rebut your argument because you assume it's "Denard's revenue". I'd love to hear how you come up with the number that Denard is responsible for; better yet, why don't you tell me how much of this year's revenue is from Will Campbell? Jordan Kovacs? Joey Burzinski? Will Hagerup? Shane Morris? Random offensive lineman from Indiana University?
My tuition money is money in my possession paid to the academic side. Denard's hypothetical revenue hasn't even been established yet nor is it proven that any of these collegiate athletes are monetizable outside of association with the university.
It's a free market. If there was a profitable way to create a paid NFL-feeder minor league, it would have happened by now. Denard needed and benefitted from Michigan as much as Michigan benefitted from Denard. Without a major college program and its following, Denard is a fast black guy with dreads and big smile, not some guy that people call Dilithium.
I sure hope Michigan gives Al Glick and William Davidson their money back if these guys are really worth as much as you think they are.
You don't need to assign specific numbers to specific players to recognize that good football players bring in money to the university. Are collegiate athletes monetizable? Well, take a look at the uniform Denard is wearing this September. His value as a football player didn't grow this offseason from zero to whatever he will be getting paid in the NFL this offseason.
You say that if there was a profitable way to create a paid NFL-feeder minor league, it would have happened by now. That is not true in the least. One of the biggest problems with creating a NFL feeder league is that such a league would need to compete with NCAA football, which uses unpaid labor. If you have two businesses competing for the same market, and one has to pay its workers and the other doesn't, guess which one is going to survive?
Sure, let's say that without a major college program and its following Denard would just be a fast black guy with dreads and a big smile. I ask you this: what has being called Dilithium gotten Denard? Isn't it kind of silly that Denard is one of the most recognizable and marketable athletes in the entire country, yet he has career athletic earnings of $0 (or, if you want to count the value of his scholarship, has earned $150,000 over the last four years)?
I'm sorry, I don't buy the whole bullshit about taking advantage of college athletes.
Yes, college athletes generate tons of revenue for their respective organizations and don't get it all back. But that is how every organization works. Do you think the first year associate at a big law firm billing out at $300 per hour gets all of that back or decides where to "spend" the 75% of their revenue they generate but don't get paid out on goes? Plus, how many of them are like Denard that have marketable likenesses that last more than a year of their college careers. For every Denard, there are hundreds of players who don't individually contribute millions of dollars through jersey sales and t-shirts. For lack of a better phrase, the rest are just part of the collective team and are essentially interchangeable (esp for a place like Michigan with the fan base and tradition).
In exchange for voluntarily playing sports, college athletes get free education, as well as an entire structure devoted to help them succeed. They get a place to play, to get exposure, to train in world class facilities with world class coaches and support staff. They get a chance to make a name for themselves and position themselves for the opportunity in professional sports. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:54 PM ^
Is the system as currently constructed unfair to a certain few superstar athletes?...yes. Denard could have made more money if he was free to capitalize on his own likeness while at U of M, no one can really argue that point.
My question is what system of paying players could we create that isn't inherently unfair to someone involved in the process. What is compensation based on? On field performance? Marketability? Popularity?
Denard gets paid more because he was the star, does Lewan get paid the second most because he is arguably the best player on the team, or is it Jake Ryan because he is more marketable?
What happens if Drake Harris comes to Michigan and gets the #1 jersey, does he need to get a cut of those jersey sales, or does majority go to Braylon, or David Terrell or AC etc.?
I don't know what the right answer is, I just feel the road of playing players opens up a Pandora's Box of issues and we will be left with a more flawed system then we currently have. I love college sports and want them to improve for the better, I just don't know if this is it.
The blog has a decent amount of people who don't want the players - the people who put their bodies on the line for our entertainment - to get their grubby little hands on too much money because...it's distasteful. I wonder how many of them would tell their brother-in-law - who was a star in his business but paid like he wasn't - to just suck it up for the good of his employer. None, I imagine, but there is a double standard for the players.
Sports are a lot like politics. Morals tend to be flexible when it comes to getting what works out best for you. If the players negotiated a compensation it might change the game significantly and we all really like Michigan baskeball and football, so that is scary.
Finding it morally reprehensible, but still following and supporting the system by buying tickets, watching the games on tv, and promoting it to the point that one would post on a sports blog about it regularly....
Because I have really strong objections to how the system is run....but I can't miss a game of those kids being exploited, can I?!?
First, the words "morally reprehensible" are not mine. I've said in a post at least once in the last two days that I don't think the players are receiving "nothing" (I don't think that at all) and that they are in the grand scheme of things very lucky people. In fact, I think it's fantastic that guys like Denard Robinson can go to Michigan b/c they can play football. I think this, and I think that Denard is being ripped off at the same time, but I wouldn't want to throw out the baby (scholarship) with the bathwater (total lack of royalties, for example).
Moving on, we can imagine a situation in which people boycotted the NCAA and forced them to change their ways. I admit that I have not organized such a thing. It would be good, and I would glady tune out for awhile.
Next, we can imagine a situation in which people stop watching NCAA sports at all, thus causing the players to lose even the benefits they have now. That seems to be the worst case, and I wouldn't want it to happen. Yet this is the logical conclusion of what several posters have said, namely that they will not watch college sports again if the players are paid - b/c they (the posters) would find it somehow dirty.
To recap:
1. I think a guy like Denard is received a great benefit - one I'm glad to contribute to - while being exploited at the same time. It would be like paying Tom Brady $250k. Is that a lot of money? Of course! Would it be a fair amount? No!
2. I am as of yet too lazy and/or incapable to organize an effective boycott of the NCAA.
3. I think that pulling your support from college sports altogether is the worst option, b/c you cost guys what they have now - which, again, is something very good.
"the people who put their bodies on the line for our entertainment"
Is that what the players are doing? If so, then I would say that is a stupid decision and they should stop putting their bodies on the line. Why do they owe me entertainment?
In reality, though, they are putting their bodies on the line for their own enjoyment, for their education, for their professional future in a sport, and for a number of other reasons.
They play for the reasons you list, but college football as we know it also exists for our entertainment - all of the benefits that you list other than personal enjoyment exist because we as fans are entertained by the game...What I'm saying is that it's messed up to find entertainment in the players putting their bodies on the line and hold the position that you would abandon college football if they received, say, $20k in a trust fund at the end of their careers. I simply don't understand why putting Tae Odoms, for example, in a better position when he leaves school would ruin college sports for someone.
In this particular case, without RichRod being at UM, Denard would likely either be (1) a good but not particularly famous WR or maybe TB at another BCS school, or (2) a QB at some lower level school that made some ESPN top plays but wasn't particularly well-known. What were Denard's other offers to play QB? And even at Michigan, who knows what would've happened if Tate hadn't been a flake or RichRod been more established.
In general, even the very best players would almost certainly be much worse off if football just had a minor league system like baseball without the universities. Imagine basketball players with just the D League.
So determining their "market value" or what they're worth just by looking at university AD revenues is flawed.
You could argue that he wouldn't have had nearly the success he's had with the Pats if he'd been drafted by, say, the Bengals. Yet he makes $20 million (or whatever) per year. What you're saying has merit, but it doesn't giving college kids a bigger slice of the pie.
Sure, Joe Flacco wouldn't have gotten his contract this year had he been on a last place team. But as of now, a ton of NFL teams would pay him a lot of money. Despite Denard's fame and performance, no NFL team would pay him a ton of money. Add up his out-of-state tuition, room, board, etc., and he probably got what he's going to get next year in the NFL. Moreover, nothing was keeping Denard from going pro last year. If he thought he was worth more, he could've left early and got his worth in the marketpace (at least insofar as NFL draft rules allow, about which I know little).
Let's look at basketball players, who can leave after one year. First, the vast majority stay. In other words, in their estimation they are getting more for their services in college than they would as professionals. And these same writers that criticize schools for not paying their players generally criticize those players that do leave early, saying for most that it's a "bad decision."
Better than paying players would be the elimiantion of age restrictions in the NFL and NBA. Those are lawsuits I'd like to see. Wasn't Clarett or somebody involved in one? Then a player who thought he wasn't getting his market value good go there.
First: Clarett won his suit at trial but lost on appeal (a decision by then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor, no less).
Second: I don't think you can say that a player who stays an extra year necessarily thinks he's getting more in compensation during that year than he would if he left. He could just as easily think - and this is my guess - that he'll make more in the long run if he sacrifices in the short run and stays in school. In other words, he'll get $12 million in the next five years total by staying an extra year and improving his draft stock, whereas he'd get $8 million in the next five years total by leaving now.
Third: I don't think Denard's likely salary as an NFL player is helpful when looking at what he was worth to Michigan. Denard was a very effective and exciting college player (obviously), and the preponderance of No. 16 jerseys at Michigan games (among other things) demonstrates his popularity and commercial appeal as a college player.
Fourth: The rookie minimum salary in the NFL in 2012 was $390,000. This does not count signing bonuses. A very plausible - even conservative - example what Denard might get in total is what Tony Bergstrom, 95th player in the 2012 NFL draft, received in salary plus signing bonus, which was $516,504.00. Let's now say that this amount gets taxed in half, leaving our hypothetical Denard with $258,252.00 in net income. I doubt Michigan gave him that sum in benefits last year. A quick Google search suggests that there is disagreement on the value of what college football players receive (annoyingly, no one seems to just look at the cost of it all), but I can't find any number anywhere near $258,000 - and that figure is just a baseline b/c it doesn't include any endorsements that Denard will get (remember that he's already got EA in the bag). It's accordingly hard for me to believe that he was financially better off at Michigan in 2012 than he will be in the NFL in 2013.
I was in the marching band and my parents bought a shit ton of MMB swag cause I was in it, bought tickets to football games and hockey games to watch me play for 4 years and all I didnt get anything for it. And its not like this is money they would have spent anyways, because my dad went to OSU and he wouldnt even wear the stuff my mom bought for my first two years. But nobody in their right mind would think I deserved a cut of any revenue, hell we had to pay an extra lab fee just to be in marching band.
There are a lot of different people who bring money in to the university in a multitude of different ways that wouldnt but nobody argues about them getting paid or anything. Its just people looking to get some money they feel they are owed and this debate is going to take a long time to resolve. If EA stopped making NCAA and that revenue stream went away everybody would stop caring about this anyways